I hate to say it but this is going to be another blog about Brighton! As you know I do love that place and since it was Sophie's last weekend in London before she set off on her Europe adventure and my friend Shea had never been we organised a big group of us to go down. We were so lucky because the weather couldn't have been more perfect - nice and hot and sunny with a cool ocean breeze.
We did all the usual things on the pier - checking out the arcade games, looking at the lolly shops and watching some of the crazy rides. The highlight was us girls decided to go on the merry-go-round for a bit of old fashioned fun. I can't remember the last time we went on one but it was really fun! Underrated as rides go really and it was fun to be a big kid again. We wandered down along the sea front before grabbing some deck chairs and chilling out in the sun. It was the perfect scene for a jug of Pimms followed by fish and chips. Shea and Candra even braved the water! It was the perfect day just chatting and drinking and getting some vitamin D (which us Londoners had a great lack of!).
After a few hours of a little too much sun we wandered around the North Lanes and got lost in a shop called Snoopers Paradise. This shop literally has EVERYTHING you could ever imagine having. Think of every garage sale and charity shop you have ever been into, times it by ten and that is the bottom floor of this shop. I was tempted to buy heaps of ridiculous things like cameras, a guitar and a full length Chinese silk gown (with matching shoes!). Thankfully I managed not to buy anything except a whole chunk of lollies from the lolly shop across the road. By the end of the day we were all on a sugar high and sun burnt so we jumped back on the train and headed home for a quick change and relax before heading back out.
Kimberly, A friend of a friend who I had met a couple of times had just moved into a new flat so we went over to Chalk Farm to check it out and have a few drinks. The funniest thing was that allllll of us girls and even James had been sunburnt at Brighton so we got LOTS of weird looks on the tube on the way because we were so burnt we were practically fluorescent. We got there and met up with a few of the boys and checked out her flat. It was soooo fancy with her even having a little attic room (very cute!) and we were all extremely jealous! Once the grand tour was done we got down to business eating and drinking and chatting away. Those 'few drinks' turned into a few bottles of wine followed by a few shots and the night ended up getting crazy! We had intended to go out for a few drinks in Camden after but when we looked at the time we realised it was 3am and probably time to start the trek home. Two night buses' later we made it back to Shea's flat and crashed there for the night.
The next morning we woke up all feeling a bit worse for wear and nursing a few sore heads. Thankfully Candra had been so kind as to get up early and make us all french toast so once we got that into our tummies we were raring to go! The plan for Sunday was to check out Hampstead Heath because it was yet again a sunny day so we made a trek up there to check it out. It had been so good to check out the other side of London because all the houses's up there were GORGEOUS. I am pretty sure I am going to live there one day. As we walked into the park we grabbed an ice cream from the ice cream man and wandered through the grass and trees into the Lido's. Shea and Izzy had intended to swim but in their hungover state they couldn't really be bothered so we kept walking through the Heath. We found a wicked tree to climb and jumped up and played like kids again before sitting down under a tree on a picnic blanket to chill out. The funny thing was none of us had the forethought to bring any food with us so the only thing we ate was a piece of extra gum while we sat in the sun and chilled out. As our sunburn was already pretty bad we didn't stay out there for long and decided to give up on the heath and head over to Spitafields Markets.
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Soph is a bit (and by bit i mean a lot) of a fasionista the Spitafields Markets are a great place to go to check out some young designers stuff and a few vintage stalls. The markets were really good as they were slightly a bit more upmarket then the usual stuff sold at Camden etc. They had a big bunch of scarves for 1 pound so I grabbed that but nothing much else took my fancy. Ok let me re-phrase that - lots of things took my fancy but 1 pound was more my budget! By this time we were all a bit sore and weary and ready for a good sit down.
Spitfields markets is right near Brick Lane which is known as 'Banglatown' because it is lined with curry houses and Indian restaurants. Brick Lane is popular in London not only because a curry is an un-official traditional English meal but you can barter the cost of your meal in the street before you enter the restaurant. Before we had already been walking down the street for 2 minutes we were getting touted by owners of the restaurants. Shea attempted to barter but after the second curry house we gave up. The deal the gave us was pretty good (8 pounds for pompadoms, rice, naan, entree, main and two drinks each) and we couldn't be bothered to walk anymore beacuse all of us were too tired and sore to continue.
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We had a pretty good yarn over a fairly average (but cheap!) curry and a few drinks but by the end of the day we were happy to be heading home. We got back home and collapsed into bed. After a huge weekend at Glastonbury the week before, several nights of showing Soph around and a touristy weekend I was exhausted. But it was a good exhausted if you know what I mean because we had managed to fit so much in and see so much that at the end of the day I had heaps of good laughs and heaps of fun with my last weekend with Soph.
* Thanks for the photos
James
